


Chrome Arcana

by R3venant_Mechanika



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-typical language, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Idiots in Love, Light Dom/sub, Light breathplay, Oral Sex, Soft Johnny Silverhand, Streetkid V, Temperance Ending, V is a Transhumanist in the most self-absorbed sense of the term I guess, Vaginal Sex, kinda slow but stick with it, my version of V has a lot more visible cybernetics than the game portrays, probably canon divergence, sex happens in chapter 7 just fyi, these two idiots deserve each other, transhumanist themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28962621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R3venant_Mechanika/pseuds/R3venant_Mechanika
Summary: 'This world’s a brick wall and the only way I’ve gotten through it is by forcing myself face first into it. No charm, no charisma, just the will to survive. That’s why I wasn’t exactly surprised when you said I’m not your type. I know you think this is what you want, but you’re in my head. You’ve got no choice but to feel what I feel, right?’-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hailing from the harsh streets of Heywood, V (Viola) is well-practiced in the art of trying to make the best of a bad situation. Everything she did was in an attempt to breach the line between just surviving and actually living. Growing all too fond of the brain parasite slowly killing her was definitely NOT part of her survival strategy.-This is my attempt to show the development of Johnny and V's relationship before the Temperance ending-
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1- Judgement

**Author's Note:**

> These two assholes have been living in my head rent-free for the past month.  
> This fic is a pretty self-indulgent mess to be honest with you- lockdown in my country has been hitting me pretty hard so I started writing as a means of dealing with fEeLiNgS. Thought I'd post this up on the off-chance someone might enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> This is the first thing I've written creatively in over five years so please be kind to me!

_‘So what it’s another day, you’re gonna take it from me anyway// I can’t seem to remember now what it was like to live life before you, symbiont’- Symbiont, Celldweller._

* * *

  
Smoke curled in tendrils from the end of her cigarette as she leaned outside the wall of Viktor’s clinic. The last cigarette before going under the knife. She was always jittery while she waited for him to prepare the operating table. Not out of fear- she trusted Vik explicitly- but with a sort of simmering anticipation. Every implant took her closer to perfection, to shaping the soft flesh of the outside to match the steely resolve of the inside. She started as the space beside her crackled with static, and the engram taking up residence in her brain flickered into manifestation.

  
‘What’s with all the chrome, V? You’re gonna end up walking around like one of those Maelstrom gonks.’  
Her face contorted as she glowered, which she knew must have looked unnerving to passers-by, but she didn’t care.

  
‘My body, my choice, asshole. Not yours,’ she muttered.  
‘I’m just curious, no need to get so defensive.’  
‘I’m not defensive, I just get enough of this shit from Viktor, lecturing me all the time. Says we’ve gotta upgrade slowly, so I don’t end up with cyberpsychosis.’ She rolls her black-rimmed Kiroshi implants for effect.

  
She could see the projection of the dead Rockerboy beside her conjuring a lit cigarette out of nowhere out of the corner of her field of vision. No way she was ever getting used to that.

  
‘Well _get_ used to it, darlin’. It’s not like they can rip me outta your head anytime soon’  
‘Stop reading my fuckin’ thoughts, you creep’, she growled, lips curling up to reveal the chrome grills on her teeth.  
‘Don’t flatter yourself, _darlin’,_ ’ he put extra emphasis on the term of endearment, revelling in the way it grated on her. ‘I have about as much choice in the matter as you do. Anyway, humour me. Why all the chrome? Think it’ll make you bulletproof next time someone takes a potshot at your head?’ he chuckled cruelly.  
‘It’s personal. You’ll laugh at me. Or make some kind of vulgar comment that makes me wish I could smash your smug asshole face into the concrete’.

  
He swore he felt colder as she retreated deeper into herself, mental walls rising around her consciousness.  
‘I’ve technically been around about a hundred years. There’s nothing I ain’t seen or heard that I ain’t before. Try me.’  
She sighed, relenting. Johnny felt the walls crumble, just a fraction.

  
‘You were…kinda right about the Maelstrom gonks. I’m not thinkin’ of joining them or anything, I’m not a cyberpsycho. I just… I wish-… Me and this sack of meat don’t totally get along. The more chrome I get, the more at home I feel in this body’. She stumbled over her words, alternating between stuttering and talking so quickly it was difficult for Johnny to keep up.  
‘So if not Maelstrom… you wanna be like Adam Smasher, is that it?!’ He couldn’t help himself, the words left his mouth (or more accurately, mind) before he could stop himself. He felt V’s temper flare, licking at his engram like open flames.  
‘Don’t _ever_ compare me to that fucking psychopath. It’s not like that. I won’t take judgement from a goddamn parasite. You’re not even _real_.’

  
V’s walls went back up before he could even get in an apology. And just like that, he was shut out again. She was getting better at doing that as their days together rolled by, and it had worried him.


	2. Chapter 2- The Hanged Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the whole 'prefacing chapters with song lyrics' thing is a total cliché but the writing playlist I made for this was a MOOD.

_‘A twitch in my spine, a mutual disorder//Isolation neophyte, too afraid to taste your conscience’ – Nihilist Blues, Bring Me the Horizon._

* * *

  
V’s pale thigh was stretched out over the tattoo artist’s knee as they worked the needle into the untouched flesh above her cybernetic kneecap. The unshaded outlines cut a grim figure of The Hanged Man, dangling limply upside down, entangled in wires pulled from his own cybernetic limbs. She’d had Misty draw up the design.

  
‘Interesting design. Not sure about the placement,’ Johnny remarked to her as she leaned her head back against the tattooist’s chair, eyes closed, gritting her chrome-grilled teeth against the sting.  
She popped open an eye just for the purposes of scowling at him.

  
‘Good thing no one asked you then,’ she growled, but any harshness was undercut by the smirk curling at the corners of her pierced lips. ‘What’s wrong with the placement?’  
‘So you _are_ askin’ me,’ he grinned, leaning idly against the tattooist’s table, taking a deep drag of the cigarette between his lips. ‘I just feel sorry for the next gonk ya take to bed. Kinda a ghoulish image to have right next to your favourite body part…’

  
Both eyes flew open this time.

  
‘How the _fuck_ do you know which body part is my favourite?’ V hissed from between clenched teeth, and Johnny’s grin widened.  
‘I’ve been living in your head for the past… fuck knows how long at this point. Not exactly hard to guess, darlin’.’

  
V felt her face grow hot beneath the two thin strips of chrome grafted onto her cheekbones.

  
‘If they’re the kind of little bitch who gets put off by a slightly morbid bit of ink, they’re going nowhere near my bed.’  
He opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off as V sucked in a sharp breath, thigh twitching as the needle passed over a particularly sensitive nerve. He felt it too, and flinched accordingly.

  
‘So, you can make it through a whole- ass war, and getting fucked up by Arasaka not once but _twice_ , yet one little tattoo and you puss out like a bitch,’ she remarked. Weeks ago, those words would’ve been designed as daggers, but now they were rendered toothless by the fondness in her tone.  
‘It’s _your_ shitty fuckin’ pain threshold. Wouldn’t even feel it if I was back in my body.’  
‘You’re the one inheriting this pain threshold- suck it up, princess.’

  
He felt the weight and warmth of her hand patting his shoulder in a mock-patronising way as her consciousness reached across the digital border where her mind ended and his began. His metal arm-always quicker to respond to his neural impulses than his organic one- twitched as, for half a second, he thought about placing a hand on top of hers.  
‘Suuuuure,’ was all he offered in response. He’d never for a second considered she might’ve been serious about that inheritance.  
  



	3. Chapter 3- The Fool

_‘This night’s alive/Don’t let us drown and turn us into dust//On Overdrive, we won’t slow down’_ _– Overdrive, The Anix._

* * *

  
They’d gone back to V’s apartment in a Delamain after the Samurai show to celebrate getting the band back together, already half-cut from drinking with Kerry at the bar.  
‘You’re such a fuckin’ lightweight.’ Johnny- or rather V’s perception of him- reclined back into the couch, kicking out his legs to rest them on the table, boots and all.  
‘’m not. You’re just a functioning alcoholic’  
‘Functioning? Think that’s the first complement I’ve had from you’.  
‘I didn’t mean that. And get your goddamn boots off of my table,’ she scolded, taking another swig directly from the bottle of whiskey.

Her favourite. Johnny had tried to persuade her to opt for tequila instead, but she said it got her fucked up too quickly, which was clearly bullshit-the whisky seemed to be doing a decent enough job of that. His own vision blurred at the edges along with hers, his thoughts becoming hazier with every sip she took from the bottle. It used to take a lot more than three quarters of a bottle of O’Dickin’s to get him feeling this buzzed.

  
‘They’re not _on_ the table, gonkbrain.’  
‘Somehow that fact just pisses me off more,’ she shook her head, but grinned, stretching out her own legs to attempt to kick his feet off of the table. Her foot connected with his shin, giving it a playful nudge. She blinked, always seeming to react with such surprise at the tangibility of him every time they had any kind of physical contact. He nudged back, hard enough to slide her legs clean off the table.   
‘Y’know, that’swhat I don’t get. I mean, there’s a lot of things I don’t get about this shit,’ she slurred, tripping over some of her words.  
‘What, that you can touch me? Most would have paid for the privilege,’ he smirked.  
‘Well there’s that-‘  
‘Ah so you agree? Two compliments in one night, fuck did I do?’  
She raised her hand, pausing for a second as she struggled to remember for a second which was the right finger with which to use to flip the bird at him.

  
‘Noooooo. That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. I meant like how the _fuck_ are you stronger than me?! ‘S’not fair.’  
That made him laugh. Properly, and fully laugh, hard enough to want a cigarette afterwards. He didn’t even have to ask her- she stood shakily and tottered over to the window, sliding it open and leaning out precariously as she pulled a cigarette and lighter from her pocket.  
It wasn’t necessarily _what_ she said that had made him laugh, but the _outrage_ he could feel filling her veins as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs. She couldn’t stand anyone being stronger than her, _especially_ not a lanky, pretty rockerboy.

  
‘You think I’m _pretty?_ Jesus, V, what crawled up your ass and gave you a personality transplant?’  
Still dangling her arm with the still-glowing cigarette out of the window, she turned to grin at him, giggling wildly, apparently finding herself too damn funny to get her words out.  
‘…You did.’  
‘Well. At least you find yourself amusing, darlin’.’  
‘Someone’s got to,’ she takes a long, final inhale of smoke, and he does the same with the digital cigarette in his hand, enjoying the feeling of real smoke filling their shared lungs as opposed to that from a string of zeroes and ones.

  
V turned away from the window, leaving it open and stumbled towards the couch, unceremoniously plonking herself down next to Johnny. She reached for the whisky and swirled the last quarter of it around the bottle.  
‘Wanna watch TV with me? Might as well finish the bottle while we’re here,’ she asked seeming too drunk to be bothered, or perhaps even aware of this was the closest she’d allowed herself to get to him physically since he wound up in her head. She took a swig from the bottle, and offered it to Jonny as if for a moment, she’d forgotten what he was. What they both were to each other.

  
As they watched one of V’s favourite shows- some soapy dystopia about AI rising up from beyond the Blackwall to dominate human society (the irony was not lost on him)- Johnny could feel V slipping out of consciousness, which he knew meant he’d soon have no choice but to follow suit. His eyes jolted open, however, as he felt the warmth and weight of her head on his shoulder and the softness of her blue-black hair brushing against his neck. Her eyes were closed, mouth hanging open slightly. Out cold. He let his own head drop to rest against hers, and then froze as she shifted in her sleep, sliding her arm over and around his metal one, chrome touching chrome. He didn’t dare move.


	4. Chapter 4- The Magician

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of this and the proceeding chapter is dialogue I've taken straight from the game cutscene and reworked to fit the story. Because canon? What canon?

_‘The two of us, all used and beaten up//Watching fate as it flows down the path we have chose//You and me, we’re in this together now…If the world should break in two, until the very end of me, until the very end of you’- We’re In This Together, Nine Inch Nails_

* * *

‘You ain’t dyin’ yet, I’ve got you.’

  
These were the last words V heard before the world went sideways and she hit the pavement headfirst, Kiroshi implants seething with static, body convulsing as a needle of pain went right the way through her skull and out the other side.

  
When she jolted back into consciousness, all she felt was was cold. She was flatlined, and sure of it. Just cold and dark and dead.  
‘…Get up, Pacifica’s beautiful this time of day.’  
Johnny’s voice cut through the fog in her head, eyes opening to see him standing over her with an expression of concern. Groaning, she heaved her battered body upright, noticing she was clasping a bottle of pills in her hand that she didn’t remember taking. Because she didn’t, meaning he’d saved her ass. _Again._

_  
_Feeling a nauseating cocktail of shame and disorientation, she absent-mindedly engaged in idle talk about their surroundings, not really taking it in. They were in some derelict hotel or other in Pacifica.  
‘Thanks… for helping me,’ she muttered gruffly, rubbing at her eyes fiercely with her cybernetic hands to try and shake off the light-headedness.  
‘What’re imaginary friends for?’ he shrugged like he hadn’t just saved her life for the second time.

  
She tried to stand, took a few steps and collapsed again with a clatter as her metal arm connected with a pile of broken glass. He reappeared beside her in an instant, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her to her feet. Or, at least, it appeared to her that’s what he was doing. Even though a part of her knew she was standing up of her body’s own volition, she appreciated the gesture.

  
‘Wanna show you something.’  
He dropped her hand and wandered down the corridor.  
‘You know, I’ll return the favour, first chance I get,’ she called after him, struggling to keep up.  
He looked back over his shoulder at her, flashing her that lopsided cocky grin that infuriated her in ways she couldn’t quite pin down.  
‘Hold you to that.’  
Head still reeling from escaping certain death, the words left her mouth before she could filter them.  
‘Your first thought was sex, wasn’t it?’  
He stopped in his tracks at that, and turned to look at her properly. She couldn’t read his eyes behind the dark lenses of his aviators.  
‘Well, technically it’d be jerkin’ off.’  
A sudden heat flared across her face, and for once she was thankful that she could just blame it on the side effects of the pills.  
‘But nah, you’re not my type,’ he added before continuing to saunter off down the corridor.

  
As quickly as she’d felt warm, she went cold. A stab of something icy and stinging hit the pit of her stomach but she batted it away automatically, as though she had some kind of in-built defence against acknowledging it.  
‘Thank fuck for that. Cause you ain’t my type, either. Somehow I find myself with an aversion to overconfident dickwipes lately.’  
Her own laugh echoed hollow in her own ears, which were still very much ringing from her nosedive to the pavement. 

  
Johnny stopped outside a broken window, gesturing for her to climb through it. Her muscles gave pained protests as she gingerly clambered through it, careful to avoid snagging her trousers on the remnants of the glass, shards of it crunching beneath her boots as she dropped into a low crouch on the other side. The room lurched violently again, and she toppled backwards rather inelegantly onto her backside, where she just sat, too drained to get back up again. Silverhand’s digital form phased into view on the opposite end of the room.

  
‘You wanna know why I brought you here? There’s a hidey hole where I’m standin’. Open it.’  
She groaned.  
‘You’re fuckin’ shitting me. I have to get up _again?_ ’  
She sighed, hauling herself upright with a pointed sigh.  
‘C’mon V, it’s not like I can open doors…’  
‘Oh yeah, it’s all just so _difficult_ for you, right? Floatin’ around, phasing in and out as you wish with the gift of a non-corporeal form and all that.’  
That one made him chuckle.  
‘The way you say that shit…you make me sound like I’m some sort of old-timey ghost.’  
She bent to slide back the metal grating from a hidden compartment in the sideboard, sticking her hand in to feel around.  
‘Well, technically, that’s _exactly_ what y’are.’  
Something rattled under her fingertips. Clasping her fingers around a cold metal object, she pulled it out. Dog tags. From the Mexican conflict, if her knowledge of history served her correctly.  
‘These were yours?’ she asked, slumping against the wall to sit down again as he took a seat in a broken chair opposite her.  
‘They were. Belong to you now.’  
Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. She didn’t know how to respond to that, keeping her eyes downwards on the piece of his past in the palm of her hand. An uneasy silence passed between them for a moment.

  
‘Imagine we’re deployed together, fightin’ a war, side by side,’ he spoke finally. ‘Would you take a bullet for me?’  
‘Yes,’ she fired back without missing a beat. Automatically. These words, she didn’t regret allowing to leave her lips. Regardless of anything else, he was the closest thing to her since Jackie.  
‘Tags belonged to a man who sacrificed his life for mine in Mexico. I’m pretty sure you get the symbolism here…’ he trailed off, removing his sunglasses to properly meet her eyes. This time she held his gaze, chin tilted up slightly as if in defiance. He wasn’t sure if that was an automatic response to someone looking her in the face, or if it was meant to mean something.  
‘I’m not sure I do.’  
‘I want you to be clear on something. I will do you no wrong. My life for yours. When the time comes, I’ll agree to get wiped. It’s me and you ‘till the end of this, alright? Tags are proof of my promise.’

  
Swallowing the lump that had seemed to lodge itself in her throat, she shook her head.  
‘It won’t come to that. I’m not gonna let you get wiped. We’ll find another way. Alt knows more than she’s letting on, I’d bet my chrome on it.’ Her words came out fierce, harsh through bared teeth. It made him wonder if she was trying to convince herself more than she was him, but he didn’t dwell on it as she slipped the chain around her neck, dog tags resting comfortably between her collarbones. ‘Anyway, we should get goin’. I’m feelin’ better.’  
‘Apart from the sharp somethin’ near your heart.’ She flinched slightly at his observation, although her countenance lost not an ounce of its frostiness, but said nothing. ‘Look, all I’m sayin’ is if there isn’t another way…’ he continued, although he knew it was useless to push the issue whenever she got that hard, frigid glint in her eyes that reminded him of discarded needles in a gutter.  
‘Then I’d do the same for you.’  
Her response surprised him so much he had to change the subject. So, he asked her about going after Smasher. About taking over her body to talk to Rogue, gather intel.  
And on that matter, she was much more easily persuaded.


	5. Chapter 5- The Chariot

_‘I’m just a broken machine//With all the layers of dust// Some things have started to fail…’ – Broken Machine, Nothing But Thieves._

* * *

‘I don’t wanna talk to you, Silverhand,’ she’d growled at him from under her duvet, knees pressed against her chest as she lay in the foetal position, head throbbing.  
‘You’re _still_ pissed at me? For getting rat-assed while in control of your body? So, it’s fine when _you_ get fucked up without askin’ me if it’s all good, but that doesn’t go both ways?’  
He didn’t bother appearing in her field of vision- he knew she wouldn’t look at him anyway, and, considering he felt every torturous second of the hangover as she did, he didn’t need this argument turning vicious.  
‘Nope. Now shut the fuck up and go away.’  
‘ _Seriously?_ Where’d all that “my body is but a platform, my mind is the software” 2020s Transhuman shit you’re always thinkin’ about go?’  
‘Oh I dunno, maybe got something to do with the fact that you’ve _conveniently_ left me hangin’ out my ass when you know we’ve got shit to do. Or the fact that you _crashed a stolen car_ wearin’ my face after trying take home a stripper-‘  
‘Hey, I wasn’t gonna do anything with her,’ he cut her off. ‘Wouldn’t go that far without your say so. I was just usin’ her for information on Grayson’  
She continued on as though she hadn’t heard him.  
‘… and you got a shitty tattoo _engraved_ into my chrome arm, which _by the way,_ is worth ten _fuckin’_ grand.’

He decided to glitch into her view then, peeling back said chrome arm from around her knees to make her look at the engraved “tattoo” there.  
‘Look, in my defence… I got this for you. After our conversation the other day, I thought you’d like a more permanent reminder of my time in your head after I get soulkiller’d again.’  
She traced the outline of the heart shape containing both their names with the other hand for a second, before sighing exasperatedly through her nose.  
‘That’s bullshit. You just got drunk enough to somehow think I’d find this _funny._ You already gave me the tags as proof of your word.’

That remark drew his attention to the cold weight of the tags on her chest. She was still wearing them. That would suggest she couldn’t have been _that_ pissed at him, right?  
‘Can’t it be both of those things?’  
‘Argh!’ she properly yelled at him then, bolting upright and reaching for the bottle of Vik’s pills. ‘That’s _it,_ you’re fuckin’ off out of my head until Rogue calls.’  
The pill was swallowed before he had the chance to get in another word.

* * *

V had always wanted a vintage Porsche. Sure, the circumstances of its acquisition could have been better, but it was hers. Well, technically it was _his,_ but that-for all intents and purposes- meant that it belonged to her now. She’d extorted the keys from Grayson, much to Johnny’s amusement. He knew this would be good from the moment she’d confronted Smasher’s former associate. Especially since she was already pissed off from the argument they’d had yesterday.

She’d had the Arasaka lapdog pinned against a shipping container through his shoulder with one of the concealed blades in her arms while Rogue questioned him. Johnny couldn’t help but sit back and enjoy watching her like this. Well, not so much watching her as living vicariously, soaking up her emotions like they were tequila shots. The streets of Heywood had taught her well. Adrenaline making her pulse sing in her ears, chest and guts filled with sweet, red exhilaration in response to a dizzying taste of something she never got to feel outside of a combat situation: _power._ Like she was a feral creature finally sinking her claws into a world that’d kicked her one too many times. He’d been just as much of a junkie for that sensation as she was, fifty years ago.

When Rogue was done digging for information, she took her turn. Asked him what Arasaka had done with Johnny’s body after they killed him. And when Grayson wasn’t forthcoming with an answer- choosing to instead make some crass remark about how Silverhand had his neurons scorched to dust by Soulkiller- she took to using her other mantis blade to begin carving thin, deliberate ribbons out of the side of his face. It was about that point when he just about pissed himself in fear, blurting out that ‘saka had dumped the remains in some Badlands oil field. She stepped back from him, snarling with revulsion, the blade making a dull, wet sound as it slid out of his shoulder.  
‘Finish it, already. Wanna gouge my eyes out, just looking at him,’ Rogue commanded, clearly growing impatient. She’d never been one for such theatrics.  
V raised her arm, ready to make the killing blow, but Grayson held up a hand.  
‘Wait. I’ve got something that might interest you.’  
She held her position, quirking a dark brow expectantly. Tentatively, he pulled an old access card from his pocket and dropped it on the floor, kicking it off somewhere behind V.  
‘It’s in the container over there. Just take it and go,’ he pleaded.  
V took a step back, bending to retrieve the access card, and the gun she’d disarmed from Grayson. The pistol felt strangely familiar in her hands.  
‘That’s my fuckin’ iron! Motherfucker’s been usin’ my goddamn gun!’ Johnny growled, and she felt a surge of indignance from him. Without hesitating, she cocked the gun, aimed it between Grayson’s eyes, and fired.

* * *

The oil fields held little else but miles of sludge and rubble. V had even gone so far as to clamber to the top of an old satellite tower to scan the debris below with her Kiroshis, hoping to see a flash of silver somewhere out in the wasteland, despite the encroaching sunset, but found nothing. Jumping the down the last few rungs of the tower’s ladder, she glanced over at Johnny, who was perched on a sheet of scrap metal with a faraway expression.

‘So that’s how it is….’  
‘What’d you expect, a headstone?’ V asked as she sat down on an adjacent chunk of metal opposite him, fishing a cigarette and lighter out of her pocket.  
‘Nah, I dunno. Just wanted… some kind of marker. Thought I’d feel like I’d closed a chapter here. Like I’d said goodbye to the old Silverhand and hello to the new.’

His aviators had slipped down slightly so that she could see his eyes over the top of the frames, and they seemed darker somehow; the most thoughtful expression she’d seen from him in their time together. An icy sensation crept over her; a kind of emptiness reminiscent of grief but without the degree of fondness behind it typical of real mourning- it just felt _hollow._ Hollow and distinctly not her own. Most of the time, she didn’t feel much from him, and she wasn’t sure if that’s because her own emotions were of such an intensity that they drowned his out entirely, or if he was just as good at constructing mental walls as she was, but whatever this was, it hurt. Hurt her that it was hurting him.

‘It’s like I never even was… Or like I was still inside Mikoshi.’

Mikoshi. She supposed that’s where the hollowness came from. Decades frozen at the mercy of Arasaka in a digital purgatory. She was suddenly gripped by an intense drive to fix it, to use whatever was in her power to drive out the spectre haunting the digital divide between them.  
‘Let’s do something about that’  
She leant down and picked up a sharp-looking stone, using it to scratch his initials and date of death into the surface of the metal.  
‘That make it better?’  
‘A bit,’ he admitted. ‘But say it was my real grave- what would you write?’  
‘How about… ‘she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. ‘Here lies Johnny Silverhand, the guy who saved my life.’  
Her fingers absent-mindedly grasped at the dog tags hanging from her neck.  
‘V, you have no idea how much I want that to be true,’ he said, rising to his feet and turning to face her, the neon lights of Night City on the horizon glinting in the reflection in his silver arm. Silence hung between them for a moment. Not necessarily an awkward kind of silence, but there was a lump in V’s throat from emotions she couldn’t name.  
‘I realise I’ve fucked up a lot of things…’ He pulled his aviators from his face, and the earnestness of his expression made that sharp something in V’s chest sting, and she dragged deep on the cigarette between her lips to try and alleviate it. ‘Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust. Blind, selfish bastard that I was.’  
‘If this is about our fight yesterday, I’m over it. Guess I’d go on a bender if I’d been locked up in cyberspace prison for fifty years,’ she chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. That earned her a smile in return, and the sinking sensation eased up slightly.  
‘At least I’ve managed one thing for now. Not to fuck this up, what we have.’  
The question _and what is it you think we have?_ burned through her mind, but she bit it back.  
‘It’s been rough. But we’re here, still alive. Just about,’ she said, flicking her cigarette aside dispassionately and lighting another.  
‘Still alive, still fightin’.’ He placed his silver hand on her shoulder, letting it rest there for a moment before sitting himself down beside her, almost close enough that their shoulders touched, lighting a cigarette of his own. ‘Thing is, most of the people I thought were my friends couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as me. But not you. You’re fuckin’ closest to me by a longshot. And yet you don’t seem to hate my living guts.’  
‘Nah I don’t, even though you were a _real_ dickwipe at first.’  
‘You sorta deserved it.’  
‘I fuckin’ did not!’ she huffed, swinging a good-spirited punch at his arm, nowhere near hard enough that if he were real it’d hurt him.  
‘You did. Beggin’ Viktor to rip me out of your head, all scared ‘cause you’re seein’ shit.. How the fuck d’you think _I_ felt?!’  
‘In my defence, you spent an entire night whining about how you wanted to kill me…’  
‘And yet somehow I’m the guy who saved your life,’ he mused, and a wave of relief hit V when that cocky smirk returned to his lips.  
‘Still feel like you can’t breathe in here?’  
‘Not sayin’ it’s great, but it’s…different now. Sometimes when I wake up, it feels like I’m back for a while.’  
‘Back where?’  
‘In my own body. Like I’m free.’  
‘Oh. Yeah.’

Her playful expression fell from her face. She’d never considered the possibility that he might have felt as trapped in her body and mind as she did. It made sense, of course, but the thought had never crossed her mind. And now it did, the realisation hit her like a backhand.

‘I didn’t mean like that, ya fuckin’ gonk.’ He nudged her gently in the ribs with his organic elbow. ‘I meant it’s easy to forget sometimes. And then seconds later, it feels like I’m missing something. Something really important. Then I realise you’re there, always were, and this stupid wave of relief washes over me.’  
Something about his words made her heart rate kick up a gear. Again, she found herself, on instinct, shoving that feeling violently aside, seeking to calm her pulse with the last puff on her cigarette, scrambling to change the subject.

‘When you said you let your friends down- you meant Rogue, didn’t you? She seemed pretty pissed at you back there.’  
‘Rogue, Alt, Kerry, Santiago…’  
‘I can’t speak for the others, but trust me, not all’s lost with Rogue. Not yet. The whole thing with Smasher seemed to be really gettin’ to her. You can’t just leave it like this,’ she urged, grateful that he seemed to take the hint with her sudden distraction.  
‘Yeah, she was actin’ weird, you’re right. But I can’t just insert myself back into her life after fifty years.’  
‘From where I’m standin’, it looks like you already have.’  
‘True enough. Y’know… I did promise to take her to the movies a long time ago.’

She forced her lips to curl up into a supportive smile, despite the fact that the cold, twisting feeling in her guts returned with a wicked vengeance.  
‘You should. People like us… we don’t make friends easy. You gotta hang onto the ones you’ve got.’  
‘Call her for me, ask if she’s free some night? Thing is, it means you’d have to surrender control- again.’  
V felt the breath knocked out of her, like someone had suckerpunched her in the gut. _What the fuck is wrong with you?_ she asked her own body, taking a deep inhale to steady herself.  
Johnny tilted his head at her enquiringly, concern etched on his face.  
‘I’m fine, relic’s just fucking with my head. I’ll call her for you.’  
‘Thanks, V. Of all the heads I could’ve popped up in, I’m glad it was yours.’

She responded with just a nod and a smile that showed far too much in the way of chrome teeth, before making her way back to that ridiculous, beautiful Porsche. 


	6. Chapter 6- Death

_‘I’m siftin’ through blue sand//Lookin’ through pieces of broken glass, trying to get it all back//Put it back together, as if the time had never passed//I know I should walk away, but I just wanna let you break my brain//And I can’t seem to get a grip, no matter how I live with it.’ – Bishop’s Knife Trick, Fall Out Boy_

* * *

The effects of the Omega Blockers started to wear off at some point on the drive home. Johnny could always tell when V was about to come back around again, as his reaction times got slower, and he could feel her presence awakening somewhere in the back of his head like a small fire growing in intensity. He pressed his foot down on the Porsche’s accelerator, thankful for the fact that speed limits on Night City’s roads were more of a vague suggestion than a hard and fast rule.

  
She reassumed control of her body in the elevator ride up to her apartment. The sensation of it was always disorientating, like she was a ghost stepping back into her own skin after floating around the void for an indeterminate amount of time. Johnny always made himself scarce during this transition, thinking she would appreciate the space to reacclimatise. This time, she appreciated it more than ever. As soon as the apartment door locked shut behind her, she shed herself of her clothes, dropping them wherever they fell, and turned on the shower. She stood under the shower jet for a while, the water, hot enough to be just on the edge of comfortable, pulling the last remnants of her consciousness back into her body.

  
After she’d scrubbed herself clean, she dressed herself in a comfortable tank top and leggings and poured herself a glass of whisky. She felt numb and cold, but the whiskey was pleasantly warming on the way down. She realised she could do with a bit more of that. _Fuck it,_ she remarked to herself. _Probably gonna flatline one of these days soon, anyway._

  
Sitting cross legged on the sofa, chrome fingers cradling a handheld mirror, she pulled an assortment of cosmetics from an old ammo box she’d repurposed to store her makeup. She dusted varying shades of electric blue over her eyelids, finishing it off with her usual outline of thick black liner and layers of mascara, overexaggerating her lashes like spider’s legs. The process was oddly comforting, since she’d done this so many times it was almost second nature to her now.

  
‘We going anywhere nice?’

The sudden intrusion of Johnny’s voice behind her startled her, resulting in a smudge of gunmetal-coloured lipstick trailing down her chin.  
‘Fucking _hell,_ Silverhand. Thought I told you to stop sneakin’ up on me like that.’ She scowled, lifting the neckline of her shirt up to her face to wipe away the smudge.  
‘Wouldn’t announcing myself still have the same effect of makin’ you shit yourself?’  
He materialised into view beside her with a hum of static, digital smoke curling from a cigarette in his hand.  
‘I’ll give you that,’ she replied flatly, not looking up from the mirror as she perfected the edges of her lipstick, moving on to polish any streaks of foundation away from her lip piercings and the strips of chrome lining her cheeks.

  
‘So, where we goin’?’  
‘I dunno, thought I’d head to Lizzie’s Bar. Get a few drinks, maybe check on Judy, see if Evelyn’s doin’ any better. Got no plans in particular.’ V set the old ammo box aside along with the mirror and reached for her whisky glass. ‘Did ya have fun with Rogue?’  
V scanned his face carefully as he hesitated, but she couldn’t see much past those damn sunglasses.  
‘…Not exactly.’  
‘You guys have a fight? What about?’

  
He sighed, stretching both legs out to rest on the table in front of the sofa. She didn’t bother telling him off this time. Across the divide where she ended and the engram began, she felt something from him she hadn’t before. Lost and defeated.  
‘Honestly? I’ve got no fuckin’ idea.’  
‘Let me guess… you tried to get your dick wet and she rejected you on account of you being in my body?’  
‘You’re way off there. Not even close,’ he laughed slightly, but the sound died quickly on his lips. Seeing him like this- all serious, without the usual trappings of arrogance- unsettled her deeply. ‘Think she’s got more goin’ on than she wants to tell me right now, and I hit a nerve somehow. I dunno. She’ll come ‘round. She always does.’  
He shrugged.

  
‘Maybe I can head to Afterlife instead of Lizzie’s? Try and patch shit up for you?’  
‘Nah. Best thing with her is to let her cool off. Last thing you need is another bullet in your head.’  
She snorted derisively. ‘I ain’t scared of Rogue. Not half as much as you seem to be anyway. Can’t believe you had me set up a date for you and then pussed out like a bitch when it came to makin’ a pass at her.’  
‘Like I said, wasn’t like that.’

  
She didn’t believe him for a second. ‘Why not?’  
‘A lot’s changed in fifty years, V. We’re not the same people anymore. Got too much on my mind these days.’  
‘Care to enlighten me? You say _I’m_ good at blocking you out, and I know something’s been buggin’ you the past few days, but I haven’t got the slightest clue what.’  
He raked a hand through his hair and removed his aviators as she eyed him expectantly.  
‘It’s for the best I keep this one to myself.’  
‘Nope. Not havin’ that. You said it yourself a while ago, we’ve gotta trust each other. So, I’m pouring us another glass of whisky, and you’re gonna to talk to me.’

  
The golden liquor splashing into the glass was the only sound between them for a few moments. She turned to look him again, the question on her lips cut short as he leaned in to kiss her.

  
The effect was instantaneous, as if some trip switch had flicked in her head and the digital chasm between them finally collapsed shut. Every rational part of her protested violently, but those parts were drowned out by the drive of an impulse she’d been spending the last few weeks fighting bitterly against, now finally freed. She kissed him back, violently, unyieldingly, her fingers tangling in his hair on automatic instinct. She felt the cold weight of his chrome hand slide down to her lower back, drawing them closer together. That seemed to snap her out of it, the rational part of her mind finally regaining control, as if she were coming round from a dose of Omega Blockers all over again.

  
‘You said it yourself, I ain’t your type,’ V pulled away, breathing hard, but her eyes, despite their obvious artificiality, hardened somehow. She chuckled sardonically, smirking as if to pass the last moment between them off as a game. A bit of banter.  
‘Yeah and you said the same right back to me, and that was obviously bullshit, so what does that tell you?’ He retorted, matching her countenance in terms of both joking overtone and bitter, doubtful subtext.  
V’s reply was punctuated with a melodramatic eyeroll: ‘What, did you expect me to tell you how disappointed I was?’  
‘Maybe I did. Ever thought I might’ve said it to gauge your reaction?’  
A sudden re-acceleration of her heartrate, which of course he felt.  
‘And what do you think my reaction was?’  
‘Couldn’t tell. Those walls of yours went up the moment the words left my fuckin’ mouth. Like you were one step ahead of me. I just assumed I’d bruised your ego. With you bein’ so vain and all.’

  
She snorted derisively at that, but Johnny was intimately familiar with that twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach whenever someone said something she didn’t like. Something that tugged on a thread tied to a hook lodged in some old, still festering wound somewhere in her head.  
‘Vain might be right. But my ego doesn’t rely on some jumped up little shit of a Rockerboy wanting to fuck me’  
‘Your ego might not need it, but there’s other parts of you that do.’ The point punctuating his words with the way he eyed her up and down, gaze intensifying and lingering, was not intended to be a subtle one.  
‘Fuckin’ hell, Johnny. Will you give it a rest? It’ll never work. The questionable mechanics of making it physically work aside, it’d just…- I’m not your type.’  
‘I just told you that was bullshit.’  
‘I don’t care what you told me. This is what _I’m_ tellin’ you,’ she reiterated, more forcefully this time.  
‘Fuck, V. Is this about Alt and Rogue and the stupid shit I said and did and whatever the fuck else you’ve seen in my memories? I was a different man back then, V. Fifty years rottin’ in endless digital purgatory changes a man.’  
‘Having a front row seat to all the stupid shit you did in the past doesn’t exactly give me hope for the future… I know past performance doesn’t indicate future results, but fuck. You didn’t exactly treat Alt well.’  
‘I know, V. I know. I’m doing everything I can to try and make things right. I fucked things up with Alt. And now she’s gone. Every time I fuck up, somethin’ important gets taken from me. That’s why I’m trying my damn hardest not to fuck this up with you.’  
‘I’m not saying you’ve fucked this up. We can just forget this ever happened.’

  
He reached for her hand, but she shifted it far enough away to be just out of his reach.  
‘But you trust me. Like I trust you. I can _feel_ it. You said you’d take a bullet for me back in Pacifica, and I _know_ that part wasn’t bullshit. It’s you and me until the end of it all.’  
‘Yeah, I meant it. And when the time comes, I will. There’s more to it than just that’.  
‘So, tell me.’

He folded his arms and leaned back against the couch, making it plainly apparent with his stillness he wasn’t going anywhere without an answer.  
‘Sometimes, when I dream… I’m not me, I’m you. I’ve seen your usual flavour of output. And that’s just not me,’ she shrugged, unable to meet his eyes.  
‘So, this ain’t about me and what I’ve done at all? It’s about you and how much you fuckin’ hate yourself. So what, you ain’t no dainty little doll? Get over it.’

  
He felt a white-hot stab of rage around the sharp something V often felt in her chest, like someone had grabbed the shard of whatever that something was and twisted it. Pictures of animals backed into corners, teeth bared and hackles raised came into Johnny’s mind as he felt every coiled muscle of V’s defensive stance. The logical, non-douchebag part of him told him this is where he should back off. That he’s about to find the gap in her armour again and shouldn’t force it. But that part of him was miniscule compared to the temptation to push her buttons, to tear off all that armour and shove his hand right into the seething heat of old wounds, so that he might get know them from every angle, take them on as his own until he couldn’t discern which scars were hers, and which were his.

  
‘Don’t you fuckin’ _dare_ go there,’ she snarled.  
‘So look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong. I know you had a mess of wires all crossed up there long before I came along.’ He tapped his own skull for effect, and she seemed to soften, shoulders sagging as though in defeat. Grabbing a cigarette from the side table, she hauled her weary frame up from the couch to lean out of the window as she smoked, taking pensive drags as she spoke.

‘None of your former outputs were chromed up- or if they were, it was a metal arm here, couple facial implants there, certainly not Borged up to the nines like me. Everythin’ they had going for them was ‘ganic. Effortless, natural, born with it, whatever. Y’see my point? That’s not me. I’m a fuckin’ blunt force weapon. Johnny. This world’s a brick wall and the only way I’ve gotten through it is by forcing myself face first into it. No charm, no charisma, just the will to survive. That’s why I wasn’t exactly surprised when you said I’m not your type. I know you _think_ this is what you want, but you’re in my head. You’ve got no choice but to feel what I feel, right?’  
V turned around, cigarette still in hand, as if she expected to find that Johnny had glitched out of existence, which proved to be correct. He could feel both relief and disappointment wash over her simultaneously until he rematerialized at the window ledge beside her.

  
‘V… I get it. You seem to have it in your head that I’m so different from you, but the truth is, we’re the same flavour of fucked up. Different motivations, different methods, sure. But the core’s the same. I got my theories that’s why this chip’s taken so long to overwrite you- there’s not that much there to change. You’ve never felt like you’ve had control over anything in your damn life. Like anything that’s happened to you, you never got to choose. I know that feeling better than I’d like.’  
He took a careful step towards her, and this time she made no attempt to back away.  
‘Let me guess, Arasaka again?’  
‘Not just Arasaka. I wasn’t much older than a kid when I enlisted to the war. Didn’t have a fuckin’ clue what I was signing up for; the corpocunts weren’t exactly forthcoming with the details.’ ‘I know. You always think you’re gonna make the major leagues no matter what, right? Jackie and I never even talked about the possibility that things could go wrong. We never had a plan B.’

  
Flicking her cigarette carelessly out of the window, she slammed it shut and made her way over to sit on her bed, shivering as she suddenly registered the cold air. There was nothing tentative about Johnny’s movements this time as he phased into her vision beside her and slid his human arm around her shoulders. He felt her body stiffen at the contact, but she didn’t flinch away.

  
‘And why would you have a plan B? They show you glory on the horizon, so long as you’re prepared to shed blood for it, make it seem like a straightforward trade. So you toe the line, do what you gotta do and think it’s gonna get better. But every step ahead you get, the further that horizon retreats. I get it,’ he muttered darkly, pulling her in closer when her head dropped to rest on his shoulder. ‘When I first woke up in your head, you described livin’ through my memories to Vik. You said you saw through my eyes, up on stage and full of hate, like that hate surprised you somehow…’  
‘I didn’t understand how someone who had it all could still be so damn _angry._ I thought someone like you had _everything_. I know better now, but shit… Jackie and I didn’t wanna hit the major leagues just for the sake of bein’ Night City legends. We always joked about it but-… it wasn’t like that, not really. We used to sit in Afterlife talkin’ about North Oak. About buyin’ a big house where him and Misty could pop out a couple kids. And the worst part is, whenever we talked about that shit, he’d always remember to save a spot for me- I’d be Aunt Viola, settin’ up shop in the west wing of the mansion, drinkin’ beers in front of the flat screen with Jackie and spoilin’ the little shits rotten.’

  
The smile that curled V’s lips as she spoke was the first Johnny had seen on her all day. He wasn’t so sure that the ache in her chest that accompanied it was entirely hers alone.  
‘That was all it ever was for you, wasn’t it? Every skull you put a bullet in was a stepping stone to a way out. To gettin’ a taste of stability. To finally able to stop living hand-to-mouth and just take a goddamn breath?’

  
She nodded wordlessly, as though his words had taken all the breath from her lungs, and turned so that her head was now against his chest, curling up her legs so that she was practically sat in his lap.  
‘I’m dying, Johnny. I’m dying and that’s all my life would have ever been. Thirty years of fuckin’ suffering. I wasn’t ‘sposed to go out like this.’

  
The sharp something near V’s heart wrenched again, plummeting like a stone towards an emotion beyond fear, and Johnny felt it in its entirely. Existential terror fading seamlessly into a bitter grief. Not the soft, sad kind of grief she felt for her lost brother in arms, but an angry, vicious grief that came from the oldest part of her psyche, formed the moment she was thrust into the unforgiving reality of Night City. From that kicking, screaming, not going out quietly _will to survive._ Mourning not life itself, but the kind of life she never got to live. Mourning _herself,_ just as he had been out on that oil field. _  
_ Reeling from the dual sensation of her anguish and his guilt, he placed his chrome hand under her chin, tilting her head up to meet his stare, her Kiroshi optic implants emitting a soft glow in the dimness of the apartment.

  
‘You’re not going out like this. I gave you my word and I meant it- we get into Mikoshi and it's a straight trade. My consciousness for yours. Just like that. I will _never_ do you wrong.’

She opened her mouth to protest this statement for the second time, but this time he was one step ahead of her, cutting her off in the only way he knew how, pressing his lips to hers with an unrestrained urgency that almost felt harsh. He didn’t know how to be tender, or subtle. But neither did she. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that V is canonically meant to be like 22, but I wanted to make her a bit older than that because I'm an old hag myself and enjoy seeing stories with older protagonists.  
> Also, I hope the subtle similarities between my interpretation of V and Johnny are coming out a little more here- one of Viola's fatal character flaws is that deep down she's actually quite manipulative. She's been playing this whole game with Johnny just as much as he has with her. 
> 
> Anyway, smut is happening next chapter, so buckle up lads we'll die like men because this is my first ever attempt at writing a smut scene.


	7. Chapter 7- The Lovers

* * *

_‘Breathing in binary, our systems align// Searching for frequencies and scanning through time//Both lost in the datastream that’s linking our minds’ – Datastream, Scandroid._

V knew it was all kinds of fucked up. All kinds of wrong and impossible and stupid, considering she wasn’t even his type and the small fact that she was _literally fucking dying_ and it was his engram that was killing her. He knew it too, could hear the rational voice in the back of her mind telling her all this over and over. But she couldn’t stop, and he had no inclination to even consider it, so long as she remained willing. His lips were magnetic- every time she pulled back to take a breath, pulse singing in her neck, she was drawn right back to him. Partially out of the kind of blind lust that makes her feel like every braincell has upped and fucked off, and partially out of pure intrigue at the fact he felt so _real._ His mouth tasted like cigarette smoke and something she could only describe as being very much himself, addictive and impossible to name. Instinctively, she slid a hand around the back of his neck as their lips moved against each other, the haptic sensors on her metal fingertips somehow registering the softness of his raven-coloured hair. The sensation of contrast between his warm organic hand resting on her shoulder and the coldness of the chrome arm around her waist made her nerves tingle at every point of contact. She pulled back from him, tilting her head in curiosity as a thought formulated in her mind.

  
‘Wanna try something,’ she breathed, suddenly very much aware of the fact that she was still lying in his lap.  
‘Anything you want, darlin’,’ he responded, trying hard to keep his voice steady against the intoxicating feedback loop of shared sensation. She looped her fingers into one of the straps of his tactical vest, pulling at it.  
‘Take this off. The shirt too. I just wanna see if…’

  
Her pale, almost translucent skin flushed with a deep pink beneath the chrome strips grafted to her cheekbones. He obliged before she could finish her sentence, appearing shirtless in a wave of static, both arms still wrapped around her. Wriggling out of his grasp, she pulled her shirt over her head, shaking hands fumbling to unhook her bra.

  
‘Under normal circumstances, I’d be doing that for you,’ he smirked, pressing a line of soft kisses from her jaw down to the join between her neck and shoulder. Reaching her collarbone, he caught the soft overlay of flesh between his teeth, making her gasp and tilt her head back involuntarily.  
‘You are not helping this happen any quicker,’ she grinned, finally freeing herself from the confines of her bra, slipping it from her shoulders and throwing it unceremoniously into the darkness of the room behind them.

They both paused for a moment, looking at each other. The way his eyes roved over her exposed chest made her forget for a moment that he couldn’t actually _see_ her, not in the way she could see him. Gingerly, her chrome fingertips traced an old bullet wound just above his ribs.

  
‘If you’re about to ask me how I got these scars, save your breath, sweetheart. Old war stories are the last thing on my mind when I’ve got such a view right in front of me.’  
She rolled her eyes.  
‘Oh _spare me._ Think you’re so smooth, old man,’ she laughed, leaning in to lick her way up his neck on her way back to his lips.

The feel of the cold metal of her nipple piercings against the warmth of his chest caused a sharp intake of breath against her mouth. Where their bare skin touched, he felt every muscle in her body tighten in response, a shiver running through each vertebrae of her spine.

  
‘How the fuck am I feeling this? You’re so solid, like you’re really here…’  
Shifting his silver hand from around her waist to rest it at the back of her neck, he grinned like a wolf.  
‘That’s one advantage the chip gives us. Since bein’ in your head I’ve learned a thing or two about your senses. And how to play with them’

  
He punctuated his words by dragging a cold metal finger down the length of her spine, sending a shudder through her entire body.  
‘So what you’re saying is, you’re all tangled up in my head, playin’ my neurons like they’re one of your guitars?’  
‘Got it in one.’

  
Seeming to like this idea, she disentangled herself from him, shifting to kneel her legs either side of his hips, trapping him in place between her thighs. As if to prove his point, he pressed a kiss over the sensitive pulse point on the side of her neck, pausing to relish in the way her racing heartbeat made the skin over it quiver before biting down, sucking hard enough at the flesh there that, were he back in his own body, it would leave quite the impressive bruise. She gasped, involuntarily grinding her hips down onto his and earning a lascivious growl in response.

  
‘That gonna leave a mark?’ she asked, cheeks flushing once more.  
‘Not one anyone else can see, unfortunately. But you’ll know it’s there. You’ll know you’re mine,’ he replied, unable to supress a smirk at the heat he felt intensifying between her legs in response to his possessive assertion.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently guiding her back towards the softness of the bed, nudging her legs apart with his knee so that he might lie between them.  
‘You like hearing me say that, don’t you? You wanna hear how I’m gonna make you all mine?’

  
He dipped his head to lock his lips around the tip of her breast, playfully lapping at the metal bar through her nipple. Her intellect failing her as his words touched some inherent, primal need within her, she responded with a breathy moan. He stopped, lifting his gaze to stare her down.

  
‘That’s not gonna cut it, sweetheart. I gotta hear it. Tell me what you want.’  
Swallowing harshly as her heart threatens to break its

way out of her ribcage, she spoke with a voice low and gravelly.  
‘Fuck you. Can’t make me say anything.’  
His already dark eyes seemed to darken several shades further as he sat up away from her. Her back arched instinctively, trying to retrieve the sweet, electric sensation of his touch now ripped cruelly away from her.  
‘No, you’re right, I can’t. Never could. Ain’t never gonna make you do anythin’ you don’t want to do, darlin’.’  
To his surprise, she smiled. _Fucking smiled._  
‘I’m just playin’ with you, ya fuckin’ gonk.’

  
She leaned up to wrap an arm around his waist, servomotors clicking as she pulled him back down towards her.  
Tilting her head until her lips met his ear, she breathed ‘I wanna be yours, Silverhand’.  
She felt his body give a poorly restrained shudder and the implication.

  
‘That’s all you’ve ever had to say.’  
Starting at her lips, he kissed his way down her body, smirking against her skin at the soft hum of contentment that escaped her lips when he reaches her hipbone. He pulled at the waistband of her trousers, glancing up at her expectantly.  
‘You’re wearing too much. Need these off.’

  
She lifted her hips up off the bed to slide off her trousers and underwear in a single motion, casting them to one side. The cold air hitting her skin, she wrapped both arms over her stomach, suddenly feeling exposed. Locking a hand around each of her wrists, he pried her arms away.  
‘None of that, sweetheart. Wanna see all of you. Besides, it’s nothing I ain’t seen before.’

  
He pressed a kiss to the inside of each of her thighs in turn, and she arched up into the warmth, testing the strength of his hands by struggling against his grip. His fingers tightened around her wrists, pinning them down to the bed as his tongue found the most sensitive spot between her lower lips. Taking full advantage of their shared sensation allowing him to know the location of every nerve ending, every motion of his tongue heightened a surge of electricity that radiated from her core all the way up her spine. On those occasions where she’d taken the Pseudoendotrizine to block Johnny out of her head entirely, she’d caught herself all too often imagining how this would feel, inventing all sorts of ways this could work to serve her fantasies about her own personal digital ghost. She’d never had any intention of acting on these fantasies, and never once considered the possibility they might become reality.

  
Her breath caught in her throat, a mixture of pleasure and surprise at how warm and real and _good_ his mouth felt on her shorting the circuits in her brain, leaving her unable to think of anything beyond the intensity of it all. It had been a very long time since she’d felt this good.  
It didn’t take long until every muscle in her body began to tighten, legs shaking slightly as that electric sensation heightened more and more with every flick of his tongue. And just as she was about to tip over that knife edge between pleasure and climax, he stopped. Stopped, released her wrists from his grasp and propped himself up on his elbows to grin at her.

  
‘Not just yet, darlin’’  
‘You son of a bitch,’ she growled at him.  
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he replied, leaning forward again to kiss his way back up her body, running his chrome hand up her thigh before letting his silver fingertips brush briefly along her outer folds. She hisses at him in frustration.  
‘Fine, if you won’t do it for me, I’ll finish my damn self.’

  
She reached her own hand between her legs, sliding a finger inside herself, eyes locked on his defiantly as she did so. He caught her wrist in his hand again, pulling it away. She groaned.  
‘We share a body- you get yourself off and it’ll have the same effect on me. Wanna make this last. You got no idea how long I’ve been thinkin’ about this, what being shut up in your head, being so close to you, keeping my hands to myself has been doing to me.’ The sound of his voice, made gravelly by desire, made her even wetter somehow.  
‘Trust me, I have a better idea how that feels than you’re giving me credit for,’ she purred.

  
He brought her fingertips up to her own lips, and she obediently took them into her mouth. While she was unaffected by the taste of herself, he seemed to enjoy it, his dark eyes closing and head tilting back slightly.  
‘What do I taste like to you?’  
‘Good. Can’t describe it more than that, just…good.’  
‘And to think, you’re usually so eloquent,’ she laughed, giving him a playful push down onto the bed beside her.

Taking the hint, he didn’t resist, lying beside her on his back, propping both arms behind his head, still the picture of overconfidence. She settled herself between his thighs, tracing the muscles of his abdomen downwards, making a disapproving noise when she reaches his belt buckle.  
‘Your turn,’ she commanded, and he obliged in an instant, flickering briefly from her vision and rematerializing wearing absolutely nothing. She paused for a moment, the glow of her eyes intensifying softly as she took in the sight of him, intently as if trying to commit his image to memory.  
‘I wasn’t bullshittin’ you when I said I’m just like you, ‘cept with an impressive cock.’  
‘Oh get over yourself,’ she laughed, although she couldn’t hide how her gaze lingered on one part of him in particular. Hesitating for a moment, she wrapped a cybernetic hand around his cock, and his back arched involuntarily at the contact.  
‘Is this… alright?’ she asked, tripping over her words.  
‘Th’fuck do you think?!’ Despite himself, he noticed the cautiousness of her grip on him, the way she seemed tense, awaiting his signal to continue, and understanding finally hit him. ‘You think I’m phased by a bit of chrome, darlin’? Don’t give a fuck what that hand’s made out of, as long as it’s yours.’

  
Seeming very satisfied with his response, she tightened her grip, running her palm up and down the length of him. He felt like iron under her touch, and her mind instantly went to wondering what that would feel like inside of her. Clinging resolutely to her last shred of inner restraint not to relent to that particular curiosity, she lowered her head, tongue darting out from between her sliver painted lips to lick him from base to tip, deliberately angling the metal stud pierced through her tongue for added sensation.  
‘ _Fuck_ ,’ he moaned breathlessly, tangling his chrome hand in her hair.

  
Slowly, she took him into her mouth, deliberately taking it inch by inch and at the moment before the tip of him is touching the back of her throat, she pulled back, dragging her tongue all the way along. His grasp on her hair tightened, his breathing hard and ragged.  
‘This your idea of revenge? Being a goddamn cocktease?’  
She looked up at him, batting her dark eyelashes in a way that somehow managed to be both innocent and filthy simultaneously.  
‘Maybe. Why, there somethin’ you want?’ she replied sweetly, smirking against his skin.  
‘So that’s the way you wanna play it. Gonna have to hold you down and fuck your throat until you can’t take anymore, that it?’

  
Her watched her eyes widen with excitement at the suggestion of it, biting down on her lip as she gave an enthusiastic nod. When he’d first woken up in her head, her psyche all bitter and defiant, he never would’ve pegged her for a sub. But now he knew better, knew exactly what this meant. Where this came from. That will to survive, the inexorable part of herself that fuelled her at her very core trusted him enough to take a few moments to relax away from total self-reliance, to hand him the wheel and let him take control.

  
Untangling his fingers from her hair, he grasped the back of her neck firmly as she took a deep breath to steady herself, guiding her head lower to take his length in its entirety. When he met resistance from the back of her throat, he pushed his hips upwards, driving himself in even deeper, eyes rolling backwards at the sudden intensity of sensation. He felt her shoulders tense, hands grasping at the sheets as she fought against her body’s natural reflex to pull away. With contrasting gentleness, he took her hand, slotting his organic fingers between hers, giving a reassuring squeeze.  
‘You’re doin’ so well. Not gonna give you more than I know you can take. I’ve got you.’  
He pulled her head back slightly, letting her take another breath before thrusting back up all the way into her throat with a hiss of pleasure.

  
He gave her no time to breathe as he took her mouth roughly, literally giving her no room in her head for anything but him. She couldn’t think about how she was dying, how everything in her life had gone to shit so quickly- all she could do was focus on keeping her throat open for him, on letting him claim her in every sense as his own. With her breath restricted, her vision was growing hazy at the edges and a pleasant, light-headed sensation began to wash gently over her mind. This sensation coupled with the sounds of pure intoxication falling from his lips, knowing that _she_ was making him feel this way was headrush better than any synthetic chemical had ever given her.

  
The combination of the feeling of her mouth with the floatiness of her oxygen deprivation was almost his undoing. It took every ounce of restraint in him to pull her back from him, gently using her hair as leverage. She flopped down onto her back, arms above her head as she caught her breath.

  
‘Too much for ya? Who’d have thought it, the legendary Johnny Silverhand, unable to last for more than five fuckin’ minutes…’ she taunted, as though offering him a challenge.  
‘ _Now_ who’s overconfident?’ he retorted, shifting to position himself between her legs, kissing her forcefully before she could attempt to have the last word, running his tongue over her lower lip. ‘Won’t be talkin’ like that anymore when I fuck you so hard you can’t even remember your own damn name,’ He felt her entire body tense in anticipation under him at just the suggestion.  
  
Every thought in her head flatlined completely when he sheathed every inch of his cock inside her. Her back arched, forcing them closer together as she locked both arms around his back, everywhere her bare skin met his sending sparks through her veins. It seemed to be having the same effect on him as he gave her no time to adjust to the feel of him, pulling almost all the way out of her before thrusting back in forcefully, letting the feedback loop of sensation take him over entirely. Taking full advantage of their neural link, he angled his hips expertly to hit every sensitive spot within her as he took her hard and fast, revelling in the guttural moans and breathy gasps he earned in response.  
‘You feel fuckin’ amazing. Like nothin’ I’ve ever felt before,’ he breathed into her ear. She knew that, of course, as she could feel everything he did, but hearing him say it filled her with an intoxicating warmth.  
‘Nothing is ever gonna feel as good as you do,’ she stuttered out in response.

  
With a possessive growl, he slid a hand beneath her thigh, guiding her leg upwards to rest against his shoulder, driving himself into her even deeper. He tensed as she dragged the tip of her sharp, synthetic nail right down the length of his spine, driving her hips upwards to meet his every thrust.  
‘You keep up with that and I’m not gonna last much longer.’  
‘Want you to come inside me, make me all yours,’ she moaned in response, muscles going taut, every nerve ending seething with delicious heat as her eyes rolled back into her head. Both their minds were filled with nothing but the way this felt. How they made each other feel.

  
Every sensation amplified to the point of near-delirium as they climaxed simultaneously, her inner walls clenching involuntarily around him as his cock tensed inside her, body shuddering against hers with the overwhelming force of experiencing both her orgasm and his own. He all but collapsed against her, pressing his lips into the crook of her neck, a curtain of her dark hair falling over his face. Her pulse hammered in her ears, blood thick with bliss as her synapses tingled with aftershocks.

  
‘Why the fuck didn’t we try this sooner?’ she breathed, giving a weak laugh. Her laugh dies in her throat as he pulls out of her without warning, rolling over onto his back and sliding his organic hand under her shoulders in order to bring her with him so that her head could rest against his chest.  
‘You tell me, sweetheart.’  
She nuzzled into his chest, nipping playfully at his collarbone with her sharp metal teeth.  
‘Don’t blame this on me, I’m not the one who said you weren’t my type…’  
‘Never gonna let me live that down, are ya? Look, if I’d have known you could take a dick as well as that, I’d have skipped all that seduction game shit and gone straight for it. I gotta say, I’m impressed,’ he chuckled.  
‘Damn right you should be impressed. I paid a lot for that throat implant to get rid of my gag reflex.’  
‘You did fuckin’ _what?_ Jesus, V. I know I’ve been dead fifty years but I didn’t realise cybertech had come quite _that_ far. How the fuck did you even go about askin’ Vik for that?!’  
‘Oh y’know… I just walked into Vik’s and asked him to make me into a fuck machine…’ she trailed off, laughing.  
‘…You’re shittin’ me.’  
‘Of course I am, gonkbrain. I might be borged up to the nines, but my superior bedroom skills are pure ‘ganic.  
He rolled his eyes.  
‘Y’know, with all this newfound arrogance of yours, I’m starting to think I might be a bad influence…’  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was the first smut scene I've ever attempted to write. Goddamn you, CDPR for making everyone in 2077 so damn hot. :')


End file.
